Country Diary

With a group of young people hoping for a grand day, will the birds play ball and what on earth do you give to a vegetarian for elevenses?

There is so much hysteria about climate change that I try to avoid writing about it, but I think it is worth recording that we had lunch out on the terrace on Remembrance Sunday and the youths swam in the sea.

I’m not sure what you can read into that, but I’m sure there is a correlation between a warm autumn and pheasant density.

Not due to their feather-brained lack of intelligence — we all agree on that — but there are low numbers of pheasants per square acre in south-west Scotland at the moment. This is contributing to extreme host anxiety. Owing to bird flu, we couldn’t get our hands on many poults to start with.

I optimistically imagined that, with fewer birds on the ground, there might be less straying. I hadn’t reckoned on the very mild back end we have had, during which pheasants have wandered all over the parish, eating beechmast, chestnuts, insects, pretty much anything but the hugely expensive wheat we have sweated to heave into hoppers in the drives.

It perhaps hasn’t been helped by quite a few old cock birds returning to their home patch on 2 February, the crafty old devils, and holding their territories so that younger birds finding their way out into the covers are bullied to keep walking.

Snipe

The first day we saw few pheasants and struggled to shoot nine. This didn’t matter too much as we found enough snipe to challenge them and my friends have shot enough pheasants to last several lifetimes, so come mainly for the lunch.

The second day was my daughter’s and the pressure was on to provide some sport for young people who had driven seven hours from London. There was pressure on the domestic front as well. I had told Rosie she could have nine Guns; what we hadn’t reckoned on was the extra 10 spectators she had invited along for the craic. Nor the ‘diversity’ of her university friends.

“Dad, we have a gay couple staying and Mary is vegetarian, so you are to behave — I don’t want any of your funny comments.” So crates of booze were smuggled across the Anglo-scottish border to avoid paying Nicola Sturgeon’s extra duty, fatted calves were slaughtered and the Domestic Goddess found some meat-free beetroot pasties to soak up the sloegasms for elevenses.

A plan was hatched to remain solvent by maximising the time spent shooting and minimising the time spent drinking. Thus we shot through to avoid giving them lunch and came in for a cup of tea and extrastodgy cake before going out for a duck flight before lunch-cum-dinner.

It all sounded good in theory, but would the birds oblige? I braced myself for disappointment and managed their expectations as well as I could in the breakfast briefing. The first field had some geese, so we lined the wall and pushed them off. They came obligingly low across the wall — bang, bang, bang, bang, nothing. At least the Guns had had an adrenaline rush.

Next came the first pheasant drive. I stood with Ophelia, who had shot clays before but never the real thing. We waited expectantly then they came in a steady stream. Ophelia raised her gun and nailed a good cock bird with her first shot. Mary burst into tears but became progressively more enthusiastic about shooting as the day went on. The snipe were about in abundance and Tom shot his first. Then the evening flight added two teal and a crow to a mixed bag of 24. The party carried on until 4am and everyone agreed that it had been an epic day. Even the beetroot pasties had been surprisingly good.

“Ophelia nailed a good cock bird with her first shot. Mary burst into tears”

Jamie Blackett farms in Dumfries & Galloway. His latest book, Land of Milk and Honey: Digressions of a Rural Dissident, is out now.

The lack of pheasants present in drives, due to the warm conditions, is the cause of some anxiety